I. To the Question

A. Opinion of Others

5. It is said here [Bonaventure, Aquinas] that no individual act is indifferent, but an act in general can be indifferent; see Bonaventure [rather Aquinas].Aquinas On Evil q.2 a.5, “So if we speak of moral acts according to their species, then in this way not every moral act is good or bad but some are indifferent... Now some objects there are that do not involve either anything agreeing with reason or anything disagreeing with reason, as picking up a sod of earth from the ground., and acts of this sort are indifferent. But if we speak of moral acts as they are individual, then in this way any particular moral act whatever must, because of some circumstance, be either good or bad . So, therefore, acts good and bad in their kind are mediate opposites and there is some act that - considered in its species - is indifferent. Now this [individual] goodness and badness are proper to individual acts, and so no individual human act is indifferent; and I mean by ‘human act’ one that comes from deliberate will. For if some act is done without deliberation, coming from imagination alone, as stroking one’s beard.this sort of act is outside the genus of morals; hence it does not participate in moral goodness or badness.” ⁵⁴